Etrion Corporation, an independent solar power
producer, announces the completion of the Helios ITA-3 solar project in
Puglia
,
Italy
. The Helios ITA-3 solar project has a total capacity of
10 megawatts ("MW") and is expected to produce 16.8 million kilowatt
hours ("kWh") of clean electricity and 5.0 million euros of earnings
before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization ("EBITDA") per
year.
The project is expected to benefit from the
feed-in-tariff ("FiT") of 0.25 euros per kWh plus a market price of
approximately 0.08 euros per kWh.
The Italian FiT is a premium purchase price for solar
electricity that is guaranteed by the Italian government for 20 years from the
start of operations.
The Helios ITA-3 project includes two 5 MW
ground-mounted solar photovoltaic ("PV") parks,
Brindisi
and Mesagne. Both parks were built by ABB using Yingli poly-crystalline PV
modules mounted on SunPower single axis trackers with Bonfiglioli inverters.
A syndicate of banks, including Natixis, WestLB and
Mediocreval, provided 80% of the financing for the project with an 18-year,
non-recourse loan.
Marco Northland, the Company's CEO, commented,
"We completed the Helios ITA-3 parks ahead of schedule and under budget
thanks to the hard work of our superb local team, our contractors and the local
utility, Enel. Etrion now has a fully-funded, operational solar portfolio of 60
MW in
Italy
with significant cash flow. We continue to review opportunities for
growth in
Italy
and abroad."
About Etrion
Etrion
Corporation acquires, develops, builds, owns and operates solar power plants. Etrion
currently owns 60 MW of operational, ground-based solar PV power plants in
Italy
. The
Company is listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange and the NASDAQ OMX Stockholm
exchange (ticker symbol "ETX"). Etrion's largest shareholder is the
Lundin family, which owns approximately 25% of the Company's shares through
various trusts.